We all participate in sport for many different reasons. Some are interested in maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle, others love the thrill of competing with their friends and a rare few set their sights on winning medals for their country. Whatever the motivation, we mostly choose our own pathways, although sometimes the pathway chooses us.

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) has developed a new framework to capture these different pathways and address the current shortfalls in applied research and practice specific to athlete development. It is called FTEM.

What is FTEM?

FTEM (representing Foundations, Talent, Elite and Mastery) is a user-friendly framework of sporting development that is representative of the ‘whole of sport’ pathway continuum.

It integrates three key outcomes of sport participation: active lifestyle, sport participation and sport excellence. It provides a practical method to assist sporting stakeholders to construct a more functional athlete and sport development system.

How can FTEM be applied?

The FTEM framework can be used as a practical planning and review tool for a broad range of sporting stakeholders including parents, teachers, clubs, coaches, sports science and sports medicine personnel and national and state sporting organisations.

This enhanced understanding of sporting pathways will help us to improve the experiences of more people, at more levels of the pathway, more often.

Key features

• Developed through action research at the AIS
• Representative of the ‘3 worlds’: active lifestyle,
  sport participation and sport excellence
• Holistic and multidisciplinary sports model
• Fully integrated
• Semi-linear design permits all possible movement
  variations up, down and across the FTEM framework, thereby recognising that individuals can be simultaneously participating in multiple sports at multiple levels of the pathway
• Features variable entry and exit points within the developmental pathway
• Non-prescriptive, allowing broad user flexibility and adaptability
• Devoid of fixed age boundaries
• Incorporates those with the potential to be elite, which has previously been identified as an insufficiently considered component of high performance modelling
• Reinforces the need for the right support at the right time and with the right athletes

Further information

For more information, head to the FTEM information page located within the Clearinghouse for Sport.

The FTEM Resource Repository (requires registration) includes information and resources specific to each level of the pathway.

To access the FTEM Resource Repository you must become a member of the Clearinghouse for Sport. For more information visit the Clearinghouse membership page.